Page 55 of Her Wolf

A cocaine fountain

It was the first time Lars had seen Finn with a full plate of food. It wasn’t that the guy starved himself, but he seemed to eat more like a bird than a lion — a little bit here, a little bit there. But today, a lion could have lived a week on the amount of meat Finn had heaped on his plate.

Bailey wasn’t shy about dishing up either. In fact, it seemed they’d all woken up with roaring appetites.

Enough with the lion anecdotes.

Lars shuddered, trying to suppress a vivid flashback of when he’d been overseeing crating up the lion yesterday.

Apparently, lions were picky eaters. Somehow, the lion had scalped Gabriella, eating everything except her magnificent mane of black hair.

Again with the euphemisms.

Ana joined them a few minutes after they’d sat down, and prattled with Cora about the party later that night.

There had been no time after their session last night to discuss anything.

Cora’s bed wasn’t big enough for the four of them, but Finn had volunteered first watch, so Lars had spooned with Cora for a few hours at least.

He didn’t feel as rested as he should — not with the shit storm he was anticipating tonight — but he’d try and catch a nap a little later.

A serving girl came past with coffee, and Cora caught her by the sleeve, sending her off with what appeared to be an urgent message for someone.

Lars studied her as he chewed a mouthful of crispy bacon.

She was really settling into this whole capo thing.

The whole princess thing, too.

God, he could use vignettes of last night as jerking off material for the next three months, easy.

“Okay, wait,” Cora said, holding up a hand to cut Ana off. She turned them — for some reason, they’d sat along the same side of the table, first Finn, then him, then Bailey. “Ana’s found the most amazing place to host the party.”

Ana turned a radiant smile in their direction.

“You’re going to love it,” she began in an enthusiastically high octave.

“Doubt it,” Finn muttered beside him.

Since when had Papa Bear developed a sense of humor? Lars glanced askance at him, but returned to his plate a second later.

He was going to need a second helping; Cora’d wiped him out last night.

“It’s an abandoned hotel a few miles off the interstate,” Ana said. “It’s hauntingly beautiful—I saw pictures online.”

“It’s perfect for our Day of the Dead theme,” Cora chimed in.

Now the party had a theme? Jesus Christ.

“They have parties there all the time. They can do the catering, the setup, everything!” Ana clapped her hands together. “See? I told you it’s perfect.”

“What about the cocaine fountain?” Lars asked dryly, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “I mean, we gotta have one of those right?” He mimicked water shooting into the air from a spout. “Just…cocaine…like everywhere.”

Ana let out a delightful little giggle at this, but Cora’s face had a certain stoniness to it when he glanced up the table for her approval.

“Fine,” he muttered into his coffee cup. “We’ll just do a brick of weed in their party favors like everyone else.”

This, at least, earned him a rueful smile from Cora, but then she turned back to Ana to discuss something dull enough that he tuned off after the words, ‘dance hall’ and ‘DJ’.

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